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Rescued boys to be sent home

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Seven children rescued from public places in the city are to be returned to their home cities, Bangalore and Vijayawada, on Wednesday.

The Childline service in the city is preparing to send the boys by train. The Don Bosco Society will foot the travel expense.

While four children will be sent back to Bangalore, three will return to Vijayawada. The boys are currently put up at the Childline shelter home here, under the directions of the Chief Judicial Magistrate. During their stay here, they have picked up Malayalam language and vocational skills like book-binding, Childline coordinator Amir said. Two of the boys are speech impaired.

Most of the children, like Raja, 17, from Bangalore, were rescued by the Railway Police after they were found wandering on the platform at the Central Station. Raja told the police that he was an orphan and that he had mistakenly boarded a train to Thiruvananthapuram.

Mahesh, 13, Annappa, 10, and Kalim Basha, 10, are the other boys who landed here from Bangalore. Sreenu, 14, Navin, 13, and Kallu, 10, all Telugu-speaking, are to go to Vijayawada.

Next step

Mr. Amir said the boys would be entrusted to the Child Welfare Committees in Bangalore and Vijayawada. The CWCs will, in turn, take them to their parents, or in the case of orphans, accommodate them in government-run shelters or rescue homes run by NGOs.

Mr. Amir said the boys had developed good relations with other inmates of the shelter.